Specific Location: Stourbridge
Oldnall Road, a seemingly unremarkable two-mile rural stretch of B-road between the towns of Halesowen and Stourbridge in the West Midlands, hit the international headlines a few months ago (1) following reports of a series of sightings of an apparition. Reports of ‘road ghosts’ are nothing unusual, they form an important part of ‘ghost lore’ throughout the world (2).
Roughly thirty years ago Detective Constable Roger Ryder had an experience as he passed the Badgers Sett, then known as the Gypsies’ Tent on the A456. An interview with the now retired detective appeared in the Black Country Bugle in 2007.
On 18th April 1943 four Stourbridge teenagers, Fred Payne, Tommy Willetts, Robert Hart and Bob Farmer discovered the remains of a woman inside a hollow Wych Elm (also known as Scots (Scotch) Elm or Ulmus glabra) in Hagley Wood. It has been suggested that ritualistic magic or even wartime espionage may have been behind this murder mystery that after sixty years is still a focus of interest.
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